How To Fail At Horror Games
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- čas přidán 5. 01. 2024
- It's only one of the most popular indie genres, horror games are all the rage, and none of them are just big piles of steaming crap, so I'm here to help you learn how to make them absolutely the worst game ever.
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-make horror game
-get too scared to playtest
-release buggy mess
Task successful unfortunately
i would say that this is what happened with Security Breach but then i remembered that it’s not scary at all
really? no "task failed successfully" comment? okay...
@@lazy_bttask success failfully
@@am_crowner8265white woman jumpscare was so scary they couldn't force themselves to finish the game
You never did a "How to fail at Stealth", which implies it is impossible to fail and therefore should always be a feature, regardless of which game you are making. Which is why every single AAA game nowadays has a Stealth sequence where you crouch as slowly as the engine allows through the predetermined path, stopping every 10-15s so the patrol guy can go to the convenient corner of no vision tm for no reason at all, with as little depth as possible
Bonus tip if you also implement it on Horror Games in the least interesting way possible like hiding behind a closet, and Ctrl C + Ctrl V your way into a very successful Level Design career
exactly. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
Not every AAA game has it (although too many do)
No, they did make a "how to fail at stealth (and how to do it right)" you just didn't spot it because they did the stealth so well
You can fail at stealth, but like escort missions the failures are so prevalent that you no longer need an example.
also, when adding stealth mechanics always make sure that the npc companions are completely incapable of even the most basic stealth. im sure no one will be annoyed when they get you caught for the 50th time!
Another tip: Remember that your monsters design can't be unique and creepy or can't mess with the players imagination. How would you then sell marketable plushies of it?
Yeah! Gotta think ahead for success! :)
Thanks for reminding me to avoid details that can't be rendered as wool or felt.
@@connordarvall8482why even render details? If it looks like plastic that will make it even more marketable as figures
@@zocritter I didn't mean digitally rendered. I meant make a design that can be made out of felt when the merch line drops.
bonus tip -
there's no such thing as "overused tropes" in horror games. if you don't know what location and overall theme you need for a game, just create a mascot horror in a toy factory/kindergarten/pizzeria, and write a secret lore about children souls possessing something
and give names to characters like Pum Pum, Sussy-Wussy, Freddy Kruegbear
@@jackbelk "You must stay alive in this horror/puzzle adventure. Try to survive the vengeful robots waiting for you; Pum Pum, Frederick Luckybear, Pappy, Boldi and MORE! Will you survive?!?"
Yeah but FNAF is actually a good concept
@Spiralredd no shit it is, it's so good that for last 10 years of indie horrors every game is tryna be fnaf (but without good gameplay)
@@za_otliz_luboi_kaptiz well there has been some interesting fan FNAF games. Like jolly final nights fredbear and friends popgoes the list goes on
Also remember that "child friendly thing turned evil" is a unique concept that hasn't been overdone
ΣΚΑΣΕ ΡΕ ΜΑΛΑΚΑ ΠΑΝΙΒΛΑΚΑ! ΜΑΣ ΕΧΕΤΕ ΖΑΛΙΣΕΙ ΕΣΕΙΣ ΟΙ "ΞΥΠΝΙΟΙ¨ΚΑΙ ¨ΠΡΟΧΩΡΗΜΕΝΟΙ¨ ΧΙΠΣΤΕΡΣ. ΑΝΤΕ ΚΑΙ ΓΑΜΗΣΟΥ ΚΑΙ ΕΣΥ ΚΑΙ ΟΙ ΑΛΛΟΙ ΚΑΡΙΟΛΗΔΕΣ ΣΤΟ ΚΟΛΟΒΙΝΤΕΟ. ΠΟΥΣΤΑΚΙΑ, ΜΗ ΣΑΣ ΓΑΜΗΣΩ ΤΑ ΣΠΙΤΙΑ ΟΛΑ ΑΣ ΠΟΥΜΕ.
fnf modders hate this trick
Fnaf did it first, then the rest copied now it's saturated. I can't stand modern indie horror.
@@nxmx6ix I wouldn't say FNaF did it first, but it certainly started up the trend.
Remember the trope of haunted children's dolls? or even children themselves being possessed or evil.
i judge horror games strictly by how many times the jumpscares blow out speakers.
pretty good metric.
Deppart (this hyperrealistic bodycam-styled horror game that blew up on CZcams in July 2023) had too much speaker blowing for itself. But hey, it was probably just a demo. I don't know what else they could give as it progresses.
Ψωφα μαλακηστιρι
Some more tips to fail:
1.When it comes to stakes, even with jump scares, never put the players into actual danger where they have to act quickly to avoid reset. I'm sure people won't eventually see that through.
2. Think that every horror game needs to have death in it. Ignore other ways (subconsciously or some unusual means) and fears that can make people can get scared and especially avoid horror that becomes scary when you think about the game after you've played it.
3. Add a sequel hook, no matter how little sense it makes.
ha ha, the sequel hook got me. good stuff. :)
+1 Make a character that obviously couldn't survive the opening but still alive. Sometimes shows up randomly without it making any sense. Talking progressivly wierder till the end. Where it revealed, plot twist: the friend was dead all along. So scarry🙀
Well, it might be a good idea to not have any *real* stakes.
You might replace the actual horror in your game with just the fear of losing progress
Just be careful to not make it FRUSTRATING
@@nicreveni thought that part was weird, losing 15 minutes by dying in garten of banban (or losing hours by dying in security breach) is one of the easiest vibe killers to commit in games in general. there is a sweet spot which is close to very few stakes
@@studiouskid1528in terms of garten of banban, the checkpoints are sometimes _way_ far back, and you cannot save manually as far as i know.
for security breach, yes, at the end when you're trying to do the second party event that you missed out on, you cannot save (except through a glitch that may have been patched out by now) and if you die there are no checkpoints, only your last save and there are hours of tasks you have to do to get to the end.
the video was too scary, please include jumpscare timecodes
0:19,
1:36,
3:22,
3:42.
Sometimes you scare me by how brutally honest you are
well, at least I scared someone with this video. :)
I actually like it when people are brutally honest with me and say "hey, you're doing something wrong, stop." It allows me to fix myself and if they say something nice instead I might be paranoid that im doing something wrong but not sure so id continue anyways.
@@Artindihey tho you can't deny FNAF is actually a decent concept. And it gets scarier over the years. And it does have stakes cuz dying means you have to start the night over again
@@Spiralreddit in fact does not get scarier over the years in fact it has gotten worse
@@Chaotic_evil_duck I actually liked security breach. The story was mid but the gameplay itself was what I had always wanted. And ruin was even better. Help wanted was alright but I legitimately love fnaf. And the numerous fan games definitely keep us entertained in between entries
Okay not gonna lie though, *not* including a jumpscare at the end and just cutting yourself off was brilliant; I was expecting either a jumpscare or for the ending speech to just end normally, so my expectations were subverted and I was somehow given a mild startle when the audio just... Dropped. XD
Ha ha, I honestly had no clue how people would react to that, seems it's getting some interesting reactions at least. :)
Lol that sounded like a normal ending to me, guess I'd stopped paying attention by that point!
He got killed by a monster at the end
Great that I accidentally read this comment because it was the first one and right below the video, so I could save myself from this wonderful surprise 😢
Another good game designing tip I guess
Another tip is to add batteries that you can find around for your flashlight. This rewards the player by enhancing the exploration of the environment for them, which will also help them find new clues. And the best part is that if they run out of batteries at some point, it will make the game even scarier. It's a commonly overlooked but powerful mechanic that players will really appreciate.
Depleting limited resources can be very nerve racking. O.0
Wait, this is a failing tip or a succeed one?
@@poorme1art In my opinion, this is bad advice. I guess it can be implemented in a good way, but it's usually bad. It could work if you use it as a time control mechanic, where you may die while in total darkness. But usually, it can get annoying pretty fast.
Resource management always makes a game better! It's not like it requires a lot of careful thought and balancing :D
@@albertocasanovalaras3153 I see, thank you! It's just that the points made were too convincing for me 😅
Another pro tip:
Designing gameplay that compliments the horror atmosphere and story is hard. A good way to deal with this is by making the game barely interactive besides walking and interacting with a few objects, then you get to stuff as many dialogue sections and cutscenes as you want, making all of the scary things happen when the player has no control over his character will guarantee your game is experienced as intended.
A vary good tip indeed! Might need to make a sequel now.
Believe it or not, that can be a decent advice, games like corpse party have little interactivity and focus more on plot and consequential choices
@@kolskytraveller1369Corpse party sucks ass tho
I feel like this is what made people love Lethal Company so much. The game is VERY interactive, and uses it for immersion, which makes the monsters and how they interact with you all the more frightening, yet goofy at the same time.
2:19 "so they could decide to turn left instead of right"
me too...
did you notice the character goes right instead of left in the animation? :)
@Artindi yea lol. Love the series by the way. I've been taking notes
A particular thing to keep in mind, showing less of the scary actually winds up being more scary for the individual, due to their imagination running wild, and making the thing 10x scarier in their own head. Such as the Alien movie, where you see the creature for very little time throughout the movie. Considered to be one of the scariest movies today. Some 50 years later.
Keep in mind NOT to do this if your aim is to fail!
Great video dude. The Vampire octopus got a good laugh out of me.
Thanks! It took great effort to design that monster... so I'm glad you appreciate it. :)
So if the less a player sees of the scary thing will actually make it more scary, we should make sure to tell the player on a regular basis that there's a monster after them, and just have it never show up.
N-no, I didn't just skip on modeling the monster. It's really scary! Honest.
@@0freeicecream956 Just don't accidentally incorporate it in a way that cleverly uses the environment around the player, that might actually be effective
really good advice. The corpse inside Springbonnie is very scary when you don't see it well on cameras or in secret loading screens, but if you look at the character model just like that, it doesn't look scary
Not _quite_
As demonstrated by films like _Barbarian_ (2022), a mystery in the horror genre is only as effective as its eventual answer. _Alien_ isn't scary because you barely see the creature, it's scary because you are first given a creepy mystery, and _then_ an even more horrific answer is _slowly_ revealed to the audience.
Yes, yes, having something make a noise in the darkness just beyond your flashlight's reach is ~~a cheap and easy shortcut~~ scary, but every once and a while try to _show_ your player _why_ they should be scared of this thing.
There is also the failed action-horror aspect, where you miss-managed ammo scarcity and give the player too much ammunition, that every threat can be easily done with few bullets!
Yeah balancing that kind of stuff is pretty important. :)
@@Artindi And tough, how do you balance it to suit both those who preserve their ammunition and make sure that every bullet count, and those that mindlessly goes gun blazing?
@@adiveler for a horror game I would lean more towards encouraging the player to preserve their ammo, and let the aggressive players learn from their mistakes. Otherwise if you want a happy medium, it probably just takes a whole lot of play testing and adjusting till you find the right amount. There may be other mechanics that could be employed as well, such as special rewards given for fewer ammo spent, or aggressive play results in more ammo drops, and with smarter code you could adjust the amount of ammo that can be found by the player to match the play style of the player based on some sort of system that detects how aggressively they play.
Another tip is to make everything unfairly difficult or luck based. Difficulty will lead to fear and not to annoyance. This works best when you have long gaps between save points, or no save points at all.
😱&🍖
💀💀💀💀
The image of throwing context at the viewer, but not quite all of it just clicked with me. Big "aha!" moment. I now have a better grasp of how to create wonder, thank you for that.
I had the hardest time thinking up something that could represent that. So I'm glad it helped. :)
I actually needed this
I'm trying to help my friend figure out the gameplay and design of a horror game he is trying to make
perfect! now you know how to fail at it. :)
@@Artindi exactly
@@Artindi if I follow this video correctly
The player numbers will match the name of the game (Desolate)
Postal 1 is a good example of a good horror game, just fully showing it's creepiness without even any jumpscares at all in the game.
Be sure to add overly complicated lore bait for fans to rabidly theorise over the coming sequels. Keep throwing in mystery boxes because people will keep slogging threw rubbish samey unrefined gameplay, if they can validate their sucken cost fallacy. It will be okay if you have a subpar entry or two, so long as the lore junkies get their fix. Here are some tricks to help:
>Everything was orchastrated by some evil genius five decades ago who lost his daughter and it's why everything is so overtly complicated and obtuse. Basically: an evil wizard did it.
>Add prequels - not sequels. Prequels allow for less strain on continunity. The tangled mess you left things off in does not need to be addressed - ever. If things get too complicated then create an alternate timeline which only tangentally references the OG games. People love that.
>Amnesia - I forgot what to write here but you don't mind.
>It was all a dream/you were dead all along. Also you are in some nightmare realm where reality does not matter, which will be easy to make cheap shortcuts in level design.
>Just use cop-outs or some super fantasical elements to explain monsters. Some ancient locked away mcguffin was excavated by evil megacorp and now there are monsters running around this destroyed hospital.
"Amnesia - I forgot what to write here" lol
Here's a (possibly done before) horror idea: at or near the beginning of the game show the monster in its full glory and make its whole deal very obvious to the player. As the game goes on, show some evidence of the monster being around you, such as tracks and past victims. As the player progresses though, they may start to notice some "discrepancies"; parts of the locale having been melted away despite the monster only using teeth and claws, evidence of torturously long struggles while the monster has been shown to be ruthlessly efficient, corpses of past victims having an eerie smile on their faces for no reason. Eventually, the player discovers more signs of a struggle leading up to a corpse. A massive one. A smiling one. A partially melted one.
The corpse of the monster.
Have fun :)
The first half almost sounded like iron lung
Ah yes, there's always a bigger fish.
I thought that was bad advice at first, the plot twist got me
Reminds me of one of the final locals in Spooky's Jumpscare Mansion. You can check the terminal and see that the upcoming monster is some eel thing, alongside some info on it. When you get into the actual environment you will eventually start seeing weird webs that weren't mentioned in the logs. When you encounter the eel monster it seems like the usual chase would begin, but then it drops dead and the REAL specimen, a shape-morphing parasite, bursts out of its body
that is insane
I love spiders so the instant a full-screen spider jumpscare occured I immediately screenshot it and sent it to my friends saying “the scrunkly squishy goober I love”
Lol, that's the one that kept making me jump while I was editing. Ha ha.
It is friend shaped :)
A jumpscare is good here and there, but the games that rely on jumpscares are just not it imo
Yes, Or if the jump scare means game over like in FNAF, then it can be appropriate as well, at least in my opinion. :)
@@Artindi that is indeed the way to go about it
jumpscares as a result of the player failing or making a mistake like in the original Freddy Five Nights game are alright (depending on how difficult the game is) but throwing in 7 PNGs of Huggy Wuggy Fazbear Momo Jeff the Killer Banban just gets annoying after a while
Here's the proper way to use jump scares, just like in fnaf 3 a bunch of unavoidable jump scares as just a regular game mechanic and as punishment for losing an underwhelming jump scare that only really counts because the scream sound plays
You can avoid em tho
Fnaf 3 is a great game you just have bad taste
Man, those jumpscares were horrifying! I pissed myself 7 times while watching (the anticipation was really nerve-wrecking), not to mention how many tons of shit are in my pants. Especially the spider, clown, Breaddy McFazman, unnamed void, and especially especially that zombie. My neighbors probably thought I was murdered based on how much screaming I was doing. The dark bit was really scary, the realisation I'm in a room with LOLLIPOPS was pweety wepic. This one video is scarier that the entirety of FANF. 23TonsOfShit/10.
nailed it. lol
one horror game ”pet peeve” of mine is the characters being featured on the main menu.
Instead, take an unique approach and make the background an image of an location in the game
Good video, will use this to make garten of banban chapter 1674. 👍
do it, it will be stuff of legend.
I recently had a idea that defies the laws of horror games. A game where here's no monster, just sounds and maybe shadows in the side of your vision.
That's called a psychological horror
@@nkvdevoh so that's what that tag is actually for!
damn i didnt know it was it's own genre@@nkvdev
I think jacksepticeye just played one. It's the first game in his most recent 3 scary games video
You know, that would be a really good prompt for a simulation of schizophrenia
I love this series and have been watching for a while, my favorite is the how to fail at platformers I took it into much consideration. But I think that a fun one to do would be
“How to fail at a rhythm game”
Is this the 'Terrible writing advice' of games?
jokes on you, this is actually kind of a great tutorial for a comedy horror game
I've been bested again... darn. ;)
those jumpscares were nothing 😎
A true tough nut to crack. :)
@@ArtindiBadmanYT is the bravest man alive.
Another tip for failing: Do not add trigger warnings when the player opens the game or on the games download page. That might allow them to be prepared for all the spooky scaries you have in store for them or even worse it might cause them to steer clear of your game entirely and you don't want that. So no matter what trigger warnings are a no go.
That's fair. I mean if it's a horror game officially they should know what's coming. 🤔
Wait a second. Aren't trigger warnings for pussies? No sarcasm
Remember kids, trauma is the exact same thing as horror! Next time you want to see a horror movie with a vet, just make sure to trigger their PTSD to save money! There's no such thing as a debilitating fear, because all horror is exactly the same. Why put in the effort to accommodate the supposed "varying audience" anyways?
To be fair, on trigger warnings are amazing, but in reality people got really weirdly specific triggers you could never account for.
@@eightcoins4401 Just list the ones that are most commonly associated with real people's mental trauma. For example, a scary game isn't more likely to have a yellow sweater than a real-life meeting is, but a scary game is more likely to involve child abuse or depressing depictions of bigotry than a random person's day-to-day life is.
How to fail at making a horror game: Make a garten of banban game
GARTEN OF BANBAN WATCHING THIS: RIGHT THAT DOWN! RIGHT THAT DOWN!
Don't lie, did I get you with any of the jump scares? (I jumped a few times while editing.)
If you didn’t write this comment ,then maybe
I wet my pants
The replay button was so scary
Absolutely not at all
No i am not scared
No
While I agree with what you're saying, (And my personal tastes completely agree with you) I think Horror is the easiest field to succeed in as an indie dev by just abusing the exact things you state will help you fail. I mean if you want to get into the nuance of what success and failure mean to each individual you can, but I'm just specifically talking about grabbing attention and possibly getting a few cheap sales.
Cheap scares are an evergreen genre in of themselves. That's why haunted houses are still a thing. (At least in America) And some haunted houses are literally just jump scare after jump scare. (I worked in a haunted house as a kid. An annoying kid. I did very poorly)
THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT:
If you want to give the player a companion, DO NOT make them smart enough to avoid the danger of the game. Good AI is hard, and it might make the game too easy if they can distract the scary thing and survive it legitimately. Instead, give them plot armor until around halfway through the game at which point they sacrifice themselves to save you or die for another stupid reason.
I saw a vertical line move left in the total darkness sequence.
Most of this also applies to cinema.
yeah, come to think of it. it sure does.
Y'know all those horror games that pretend to be cutesy and kid freindly but get eViLEr over time? I'm gonna do the opposite! A game that starts off scary but then you slowly realize that there's actually no danger whatsoever!
Good horror games: fnaf, resident evil 4
Bad horror games: ban ban
Can we really even consider Garten of Banban a real horror game
And papi playtime
Resident Evil 4 is not even a horror game, its an action game with some spooky elements.
If you feel any strong emotions, the video ends - Roblox frontpage
Don't forget the necessity to shoehorn pointless and edgy lore that is shoved in the player's face at every moment through inorganic and obnoxious methods that massively weigh down the pacing like overlong paper notes in arbitrary and easy to miss locations, or forced cutscenes and disconnected gameplay segments that have literally nothing to do with the present events. This lore should also be deliberately confusing to the point where nobody can understand it, because this helps distract the player from the aspects they must actually engage with, like the gameplay and events that are happening around them as they continue onward - and, as said before, this gameplay should always just be a bare bones walking simulator, sometimes broken up by mediocre combat or a boring stealth system, both of which should be extremely unfair and have no complexity whatsoever so as to minimalise player engagement.
Oh, and the protagonist should have absolutely no personality or any real role in the plot unless said role could've been filled by literally anyone else, because the story becomes significantly more compelling when the person you have to experience it through has absolutely nothing you can relate to or sympathise with.
Their goals should typically consist of nothing other than wanting leave the place they have entered for shallow reasons that ideally will have nothing to do with the plot - instead of giving them a valid reason not to turn back, which would require giving the character some actual personality and complexity, just make them have absolutely no common sense or the most inexplicably bad luck in the world so that everything will end up physically stopping them from leaving, like making every floor break beneath their feet for absolutely no reason. The latter is particularly useful for making the events in the game feel contrived which will help shatter a player's immersion, ensuring they have an even harder time experiencing the game and its horror as intended.
On top of all this, always put in a stealth level where you have to turn on several generators in the most ridiculous locations, no matter how little sense it makes.
This is super horror bro Mike here with another "generic minimalist Uber dark hallway with jump scares game that you won't buy nor play because super horror bro Mike videos are funnier than playing this game" video where we will talk about the random notes we found out by activating both electric and water generators...
Horror is unfortunately one of those genres that was heavily affected by singular game or singular franchise, for the worst, to create more bad games. It was slenderman in the past and in modern times it was fnaf.
But at the same time? I kinda feel as though horror kinda peaked (atleast non survival horror games)with Amnesia or Penumbra series, sure some games were close at mimicking it but still.
It's just, the more horror games you play, the weaker the fear factor. Especially if you play games in same franchise but even by playing other horror Franchises you kinda get less and less afraid. The game can only do so much to scare ya before you see it as cliche
How to fail at making a horror game: Make the game take place in a toy factory with characters that have very kid orientated designs.
And make sure to rip off fnaf 1 guys it’s not stealing it’s “inspired”
Awesome series 😁!!
that hand at 0:39 is beautifully drawn. for me its very hard to draw pixelated hands. so i applaud you.
You forgot make it based off of something from your childhood but turned dark and twisted
Yeah, it didn't quite flow with the rest of the script, there were a few things I had to drop. Maybe I'll make a sequel one day. :)
someone knocked on my door at the end of the video and It was so perfectly timed I thought it was part of the video.
Ha ha. That worked out pretty well. Lol
Nice that a new episode comes out about a day after I find this series.
It was all part of the plan. Been waiting for you to come along so I could release this one. ;)
I find it funny how fnaf is an actual good horror game. Wo the irony goes hard
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Repent and follow him today seek his heart Jesus Christ can fill the emptiness he can fill the void
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John 3:16-21
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life. 17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved. 18 He that believeth on him is not condemned: but he that believeth not is condemned already, because he hath not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. 19 And this is the condemnation, that light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. 20 For every one that doeth evil hateth the light, neither cometh to the light, lest his deeds should be reproved. 21 But he that doeth truth cometh to the light, that his deeds may be made manifest, that they are wrought in God.
Mark 1.15
15 And saying, The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel.
2 Peter 3:9
The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.
Hebrews 11:6
6 But without faith it is impossible to please him: for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek him.
Jesus
This was somehow cute.
Was that warning a genuine warning or an attempt at mental manipulation? is now a question that will forever follow me in the dark...
The video wasn't really intended to be scary, but I literally made myself jump while editing (maybe I'm just weak sauce,) and for a past video with some sudden flashing images, someone commented that an epilepsy warning would have been nice, so just in case I decided to add it. But I guess it could work both ways. :)
Well, we did get the edited version after all! ;-) But in all seriousness, you did a great job covering the essentials of horror in this video. All the way up to that classic uncertain outcome! @@Artindi
Im genuinely confused on the whole safe space rule and what counts as a safe space. If the safe space is a part of gameplay, like a closet or something, would it be bad to punish the player for using it for too long? Would a title screen also count as a safe space? I've seen games change their title screen as the game goes on to something creepier to add a lot of uneasiness and tension. I feel like it would be really effective to build up a sense of safety only to break it, or at least tease the idea of it being broken.
Man this is so scary
In the original re3, nemesis could enter safe spaces if you stayed in them too long
It's mostly about pacing, if all you have is none stop horror, even if it's a horror game, it becomes lame pretty quick, but if you have a change in pace, it breaks it up in a way that helps the player stay in gaged and last longer. For horror games, especially ones where the player is in parol or is being hunted or chased, a safe zone or level is the only thing with enough emotional contrast, simply changing the way the player is in danger isn't enough to relieve the high tension of being in danger. Not only this but as I pointed out it can build up anticipation for the danger parts making them more impactful.
This isn't a rule though, just a good way to help the flow of a game and incurage playing longer, there are some games that totally break this rule, such as in The Last Of Us 2 where normally when in the crafting menu you are safe, but one time about halfway through the game. a bad guy grabs you from behind mid craft, breaking the expectation of security while crafting for the whole rest of the game. So depending on the game and secumstances, any rule or guidline can be broken to great effect.
@@Artindi Ah okay I see. Yeah I totally agree with the pacing aspect, the same thing goes for trailers as well: if it's just nonstop action for a while, it gets boring. Also after thinking about it, I've seen games do the "breaking the safety expectation" thing really well without changing the pacing. OMORI changes it's title screen near the final moments of the game to something much more eerie, and it surprised me and spooked me a lot when I played simply cause I didn't expect the game to scare me in it's title screen of all places.
Thanks for the help!
well i do know a game that punishes you for hiding in a closet for too long
Other tips
1.Make sure to rip of of poppy playtime like it ripped off bendy, like it ripped off fnaf
2. make sure to have a chase sequence, even tho it lost the suprise attack because IT HAPPENS
ALL THE TIME
3. Make sure the villains die stupidly
After their chapter, telling the player that they were just an obstacle
4. lankybox makes a video on you
5. Game theory takes a deep dive in your game's lore (you were shitpost half of the time)
Oh...add in-game store as quickly as possible.
@@artman40 and remember to mass produce plushies of the monsters so that more five year olds will play your game
@@ketaminepoptarts make sure to disappear to be even more forgotten than the older games
Poppy playtime is somewhat commercially sucessful as lazy and derivative it is.
If you want to truly fail, look to Hello Neighbour. Not even GameTheory, a channel aimed at literal Elementary School Students, bothered with even 1 second of Hello Neighbours "lore".
Additionally, also just like Hello Neighbour make the finished game an entirely different game from the dev build. It went from somewhat crap gimmick mascot horror to the worst 3d puzzle platformer ever.
Ive always wanted to try game development. Now after watching this video and reading comments I feel discouraged and afraid of publishing one lol
Failing is a part of everything we do. So the best we can do is do our best. Wouldn't hurt to try with the expectation that your first few games will probably suck. Because everyone's does. But the biggest fail would be to never try. :)
And this is why Voices of the Void failed.. At failing.
The creator clearly wasn't taking your advice, and now there's a huge handful of CZcams videos of it out there, and he essentially doesn't need to make people pay for the game because of the amount of donators he gets, as well as how the dread you can feel from playing the game is the *real* cost of the game
Voices of the void is not a good horror. Just like the absolute masterpiece of horror cinema that the NUn was showed us (it made millions so its objectively good) how scary something is is measured in how many jumpscares it has. Voices of the void contains way too few jumpscares, there should be something jumping out at you going boo all 5 minutes, especially if itd make for a very marketable plushie.
glad to see this channel is getting more popular
Me too. :)
Fear and Hunger: "felt cute, might transform a literal pile of clothes into an invincible enemy that slowly drives the player characters insane just by existing
We can apply the advices of "How To Fail At Horror Movie" : Make the characters having missed a whole century of horror subculture, it will be more immersive if they had no clue what a zombie is.
Apparently, it doesn't *exist* in ANY popular subculture. Which is...weird that nobody came up with it.
how to fail at horror
step 1: be the euphoric brothers
Gonna be real, I almost ignored this cause i thought it was just gonna be fnaf slander but im really glad i watched it. Good video 👍
Bonus tip: make the jumpscares as predictable as possible, jumpscares are most effective when the player knows exactly when and where they are, and are ready for it!
Nope, nope, There are some good walking simulator horror games. But they break up the walking know later , this is a reminder 0:35
Fnaf was actually quite scary back in the day.
Another tip to fail is to make the monster watch you from far away because it will be very, very scary.
I'm glad that people got the encourage to criticise the old fnaf too
Lethal company didn’t have lore and kinda just has monsters rush the player yet it sold very well
I mean, it would be cool to have a safe point where the monster gets closer and closer the longer you sit there. Like even just sitting there for like 3 minutes, get You killed 4:03
Spookys Jumpscare mansion did that
Do it again but yeah I know
On the other hand, having real safe zones where you can hang out however long you want, save for one safe zone put suspiciously soon afterwards which is just a trap actually sounds like a good subversion
@TheMamaluigi300 But also knowing that your safe zone isn't entirely safe.Built's tension but it does help to have real safe zones occasionally And the real safe zone is the menu.
Funny how a video on cheap horror uses a spider jumpscare.
The best way to scare players is to show them that a certain area is dangerous to go in
Then force them to go in
I’d love it if you made games with these vids
yo! I wanted a video on horror games, you can combine horror with any other genre so you can fail twice as hard. I thought about making a FNAF clone for a long time but platformers are my forte!
This is about the first time I laughed hard at jumpscares xD
Around a minute in, I realized what this was and I feel obligated to say that you hit the nail on the hear
Your jumpscares are funny
dang bro, ya don't got a do me dirty like that. ;)
The Batman orphanage!!😂
A seemingly unnoticed joke until now. :)
Oh yeah I saw that lmao
I'm gonna do the opposite of everything this video says to try to make a good horror game and hope that my focus doesn't shift before I get close to finishing it!
and its either a copy of fnaf, a game where you collect x of y things, or a topdown game where your in a house
Feels like you basically just described BanBan
as someone with anxiety who is gonna make one this is funny
(It’s not scary but hopefully psychological)
Fnaf and its consequences have been disastrous for the human race
so i have an overactive imagination and have a brilliant idea for a horror game.
i wonder if one reason i've never been scared of basically everything in the horror genre is because of how played-out most of it is.
Horror always has been a 50/50 of people actually passionate about the genre and people convinced you can make money of any low effort cash grab as soon its horror.
In pretty much all forms of media.
This video is too scary take it down 😢
1:50 SMM2 moment XD
The end WAS GENIUSS
You know exactly why.
I like the part where he says to make a shitty non-scary horror game, just rip-off a shitty non-horror game lul
Random appreciation of the art in these videos: THE BACKGROUND IS NOT PURE WHITE. MY EYES ARE HAPPY.
Thanks! Glad someone has noticed. :D
You gotta do fighting games next. I’m thinking of making one and I don’t want to take any steps in the right direction.
Can you do a video on how to fail at cozy games and or survival sandbox or survival games?
poor lady got hit in the face three times :(
splendid
I disagree with your opinion on stakes. Everyone knows the best horror games make you face literally impossible enemies with no hints towards what to do while sending all the way to the start every time you die. Bonus points if it introduces brand new mechanics and doesn't explain anything. Thats fear of the unknown and definitely not fear of being sent back to the start because everything is pitch black and the monster is 9 times faster than you and instantly kills you on sight
What do you mean by you horror devs 🤔
I am just starting game development, and my plan is just to focus on horror because I like those games (ahm ahm, and because I was guilty of thinking that 'well for horror games you just need to throw the player in a dark house with a monster and they're required to find some stuff to escape' xD).
I'm struggling to find the sweat spot between creating a horror game and a survival-based game. I am afraid too much acton and gameplay will make it into a resident evil game, and too much quietness will just be another Granny game, I wonder if you have any tips?
Please keep this coming. Also, maybe you can do "how to fail at indie games" or "how to fail at marketing" or "how to fail at unreal/unity' ;)
Technically every episode is "how to fail at indie games" because that is what the series is called. ;)
Otherwise my best advice is try a few really small mini games as development projects then after make a survival horror game. Try and think outside the box for something simple that captures the heart of both genres and do your best to keep it simple and focused. Ask more people and find a place where you can post progress and get helpful feedback. :)
The main tip is to take child theme and turn it freakin twisted
TIHI for not making a Garten of Banban joke
If i wanted my HORROR game to suck i would copy a horror game from the app store
this is like “Terrible writing advice” for games.
hi if i could ask you i would like how to fail at idle games i honesly learnead a lot what not to do from your videos at development and i always wanned to make an idle game but i have no idea how to fail at it :)
Eventually I will make it. The priority of what video/subject/genre I make is mostly determined by popular demand. But no matter what sooner or later I'll get through everything. :)
Well, it's the new year, let's make some risks:
Some take gamedev very seriously and in case you treat your content as satiric/not to be taken seriously, i actually do find your videos and the tips you give quite useful - with that said, i think that if one would wish to take important notes from them, the format of "do this and fail" is confusing since the message is obviously to "DON'T do this and perhaps you'll be successful". I at least, would find lots of value if you made an additional series in which you reverse all your made content and instead go with the "How To Succeed At..." format for it. All the best!